Finding the Sun
by A. Meril
Summary: Christmas hols, sixth year: Andromeda Black leaves her family. 2 of 7 chapters posted. *NOTE 1/31/08*: On hiatus.
1. If you wanted honesty

**Finding the Sun**

**I.**

**If you wanted honesty**

_21 December 1970_

_Christmas hols, sixth year_

When the train pulled into King's Cross, and he saw a dozen or so of her relatives waiting, he asked (very hesitantly) what it was like, belonging to a family like hers.

She didn't answer.

Andromeda knew all about Ted's family, of course. He talked about his mum with great affection: a tall woman with messy brown hair and a crooked smile, working day and night to support her two sons. His younger brother was almost fifteen, going to secondary school, and completely fascinated by Hogwarts. (_I sent them a picture of us, Andi; Charley said you were bloody gorgeous, and demanded if I'd used magic to spell you in love with me._) She knew about his dad, lying beneath the tiny stone marker in the London graveyard, and how his mum still left violets there when she could afford it.

She knew so much about his past, and revealed very little about her own.

He didn't know that the scar on her left shoulder was from the Cruciatus when she was nine: punishment for a screaming argument with her sister. Or that Bella's last letter had been about the new leader who championed purebloods and despised Muggles (_Lord Voldemort has promised he'll bring it back to the way it should be_). Ted, with his loving mum, could _not_ know that first her aunt, and then her mother, had always been quick to reprove flaws with force, and that Andromeda's straight back and proudly tilted chin were the result of years of rigid discipline.

Ted wouldn't understand her world, the Black world, with its ancient silver crest, tangled family tree stretching back to Merlin's time, and every drop of her blood so pure that her childhood was a riot of accidental magic… Hogwarts students talked in awed voices about her family, but they didn't have a goddamned _clue_ what it was like being one of them. A Black danced that knife's edge between madness and brilliance, but in the end it was always brilliant because it was a Black doing it.

Everything would change if he knew what they were really like. First he would mistrust her, and when mistrust grew to outright hatred he would leave her; that was the way things worked.

Secrets and silence were her only safeguard.

So she lowered her eyes and whispered, barely audible, "You will be there, won't you? You won't forget?"

Ted took her hand, laced their fingers together, and pulled her into his arms. "How could I?" he chided, breath tickling her ear. "I promise I will."

She breathed deeply, unsteadily, and murmured, "I love you," into the collar of Ted's striped shirt.

When she pulled back, he looked slightly dazed (he always did, when she said that), but grinned and tugged her hair. "Be brave. And don't—"

"Meda." Her younger sister's cool voice floated from the door, and they turned to see Narcissa watching them with narrowed eyes. "Mother and Father will want to leave as soon as possible," she said, giving Ted a scornful glance.

Andromeda nodded, and her poised sister left with a flick of pale hair. She wasn't worried: Narcissa would keep her own counsel.

Levitating her trunk down, she made sure all the locks were secure and pulled it to the door; even preparing to go back to _them_ made her tense up. She looked back.

Ted had a little smile on his face. "I promise," he repeated, and she relaxed.

She was going back to her world, the Black world, for the last time.

----

Disclaimer: It all belongs to J.K. Rowling.

Notes: Thank you to Noldo and Avendya for being interested, and for all the plotting. ;)

This is the first of seven chapters.


	2. In the room where women come and go

**Finding the Sun**

**II. **

**In the room where women come and go**

_1 January 1971_

"Cissa, have you seen my diamond earrings?"

"I have not," her sister murmured, sitting cross-legged on the bed and studying the latest _Daily Prophet_, "but I know Mother gave them to one of the house-elves for polishing."

Andromeda frowned. "Oh."

"Bella is here," Narcissa said, flipping the page of the newspaper.

"She is?"

"Mm hm. Mother is fussing over her and Rodolphus downstairs. Disgusting, really." Narcissa eyed her, and added sharply, "Please do not make Mother angry: it would create a terrible mood for your party. Not _now_, Meda."

_Oh, Ciss, if only you knew… _ "Right," she said coolly. "I'll be ready soon."

"Be sure you are. Aunt Walburga arrived half an hour ago, and Mother will be furious if anything goes amiss. Aunt still thinks Mother can't run anything without her help: The Manor, a party, and certainly not us."

Andromeda sniffed. "Hardly surprising, given Mother and Father's history. It was a miracle Bella's wedding went as well as it did."

"True." Narcissa gave her a thin half-smile, and set the _Daily Prophet_ aside. "I have a gift for you," she announced.

"Cissa--"

"Stop it," Narcissa interrupted, taking a deep breath. "Mother and Father are negotiating with the Malfoys for an engagement."

Andromeda's heart stopped. It had long been assumed that eventually, she would marry Lucius Malfoy; that they were the same age and from the old pureblooded families was enough to convince the wizarding world that this marriage was a given.

"They're negotiating for me, not you."

A slight pause. "You..." Andromeda frowned. "Cissa, how do you _know_--"

"Mother told me last week. Apparently, Mrs. Malfoy expressed a certain... distaste for you, and a preference for me."

The air in the room expanded, and Andromeda breathed freely. "Do you know why?"

"Not at all. But if Deianira Malfoy says it will never happen, you can be assured it will not." Narcissa examined her nails carefully. "I suspect it would have something to do with you and Lucius hating each other."

That was true enough. "_You_ are only fifteen," Andromeda protested, feeling oddly revolted at the idea of Lucius Malfoy wedding her sister.

Her sister waved a hand carelessly. "Oh, it won't be announced for another few years. And Lucius has always been unfailingly courteous to me, so I don't mind." She tilted her head, looking at Andromeda in a slightly puzzled fashion. "This is the way it is, Meda; the way it has always been. We marry for the family."

"Except for Bella," Andromeda said with a twisted smile.

Narcissa laughed shortly. "Except for Bella," she agreed, as they both recalled the delight of their parents when their sister announced she was going to marry Rodolphus Lestrange. _They_ had always known she would never marry at the family's bidding; it was just fortunate that she had fallen in love with someone rich and pure enough.

"I do not mind," Narcissa said quietly, looking out the window into the gray afternoon.

Andromeda wondered if Cissa ever minded _anything_ behind that immovable mask of hers, behind that gracious smile. She did not mind when it was Bella and Andromeda who went to Italy with Uncle Alphard, when Druella Black gifted her famous diamond earrings to Andromeda, when Aunt Walburga petted and praised Bella and Meda for their marks while she received merely an indulgent smile. Narcissa didn't seem to mind being the pretty one, the quiet one. _Silence buys secrets,_ she once told Andromeda, quoting a Slytherin maxim,_ and secrets are power. _

"I will marry Lucius when I finish school. But you..." Narcissa paused, taking a minute to give Andromeda a wistful look. "You will never marry at their whim. You and Bella have never been the sort to suffer constraints."

_You and Bella. _ There it was. _You are so like Bella. _

"I should go downstairs: Sirius is sure to be jumping out of his skin, and I won't have him spoiling things for you." Narcissa smoothed the front of her robes. "Promise me you'll not try anything tonight?" Andromeda nodded, and her sister relaxed fractionally. "Good. You should hurry, because Mother expects you downstairs promptly at five." She stepped over the piles of robes on the floor (raising an eyebrow at the mess) and lightly embraced Andromeda before departing in an elegant flurry of blue silk.

_You and Bella, you and Bella, you and Bella... _An endless refrain beat against her skull with razor-edged wings, taunting her, cackling at her._ You and Bella. _

_Both wishing and wanting and waiting to shape her world to the way she thinks it should be, ready to surrender everything for her own personal cause, to place herself resolutely on her own chosen side. _

_Blacks are never mediocre. _

_You and Bella._

Suddenly a pair of slender arms enfolded her, exotic perfume making her dizzy.

"Happy birthday, Meda," brilliant, mad Bellatrix whispered, thrusting a package into her hands. "You deserve it early."

If Narcissa was untouchable ice, then Bella was poison: slow and sinuous, curling around the senses, dulling the reflexes... You never noticed she was a trap until it was too late, until she was standing over you with a wand at your throat. It was never that Bella was subtle, it was that you wanted to be close to this compelling, exceptional woman who could do anything, make _anything_ happen...

"Go on, open it!" Bellatrix said impatiently, picking at her diamond bracelet.

Slowly, peeling back the expensive paper, revealing a flat leather box with an embossed jeweler's crest, Andromeda opened it. A ruby necklace gleamed darkly on a bed of white velvet.

"I found it at Richelieu & Tasse, in Paris," Bella said, snatching it up and fastening it around Andromeda's neck. Her fingers were cold. "It belonged to Berenice Black in the 1500s; Aunt said that Berenice went batty and killed seven Mudbloods to dye the stones a deeper red. I thought the color would suit you."

Andromeda's skin crawled, but the cool, calm mask slid into place and she thanked her sister in an appropriately impressed voice.

"You'll get another present tonight," Bella said carelessly. "The necklace is from _just_ me, as well as this…" Glancing over at the door, her sister beckoned her closer and whispered, "I've told Lord Voldemort about you, Meda. He said I could bring you to our next gathering in three weeks. We'll be getting Josephs' family, out in Cornwall."

"Josephs?"

Bellatrix snorted. "Yes: Oriel Josephs, Head Mudblood." She rose from the bed, pacing feverishly. "Aren't you tired of hiding, Meda?" she said heatedly, staring out the window. "_Aren't_ you? We don't deserve this. We shouldn't have to hide what we are, the powers that are ours by blood, by right, by tradition! I will not stand by and let us fade into legend. No, by Salazar, I won't let that happen. I'll give my life to protect our world."

Everything clicked into place: Bella's new obsession, the mutterings in the street, and the disappearances. It was like seeing her sister for the first time. "Be serious," Andromeda said flatly. "You'll go to Azkaban."

Her sister waved a dismissive hand, wedding ring flashing distractingly. "This is _worth_ it, Meda! I've found a purpose, and it's worth everything I have to give. He values me," she added, low and excited, turning to face Andromeda with glittering eyes. "He says that I shall be his right hand, his most trusted…"

"Stop talking rot, Bella." Picking at a robe, Andromeda looked up to meet her sister's surprised gaze. "What else could you expect? There are _laws_, Bell."

Bella's eyes narrowed, and she said suspiciously, "You don't have anything to do with that Mudblood boy anymore, do you?"

"Don't be stupid. Do you think I would?"

Laughing, Bellatrix leaned against the wall and smirked. "Clever words. You're better than Cissy. But soon, everyone will have to declare a side, including you." Andromeda emitted a snort of disbelief and turned away. "Rodolphus says we can't trust you. Says that I'm mad to ask." Bella's hand brushed the back of Andromeda's neck, pulling her long black hair away from her face, and turning them both to face the mirror.

But I know," Bella murmured, "that you would never fail me."

Her sister's fingers whispered through Andromeda's hair, gently pulling apart any tangles, wordlessly promising her love and loyalty. That was how Bella operated: her trust in you erased all doubts, all wrongful acts, and placed you on a pedestal where she would defend you at all costs, even beyond death.

Think about it." One last brush, and she was gone.

----

Disclaimer: It's all J.K. Rowling's.

Notes: Again, thanks to Noldo and Avendya, who are wonders.

This is part two of seven.


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